HTC Thunderbolt Gets Crazy Good deal at Amazon; Only $130 Bucks On-contract

[markietas]

Skull One, it has nothing to do with great vs. good product. It has everything to do with what's popular & mainstream.

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You just made my point using different words. Great products are both popular and mainstream over very long periods of time. In the cell phone world that means anything over 10 month old that maintains it's price is a great product.

By that logic Justin Bieber would be the greatest musical genius of all time.

 

[techarlj]

By that logic Justin Bieber would be the greatest musical genius of all time.[/QUOTE]

Wait, he isn't? So the iPhone isn't the greatest phone ever? Blasphemy...

I'll admit, the iPhone sells great, Apple's fan boys are loyal and have no problem paying a premium for hardware that is at times 2 years behind the learning curve and they drive sales. It's as simple as that, and all the teenage girls who leak their nude shots all over the web... To each their own.

 

[Skull One]

By that logic Justin Bieber would be the greatest musical genius of all time.

And history hasn't written its chapter on his full body of works or his life earnings.

A prime example of this would be Micheal Jackson. His first 2 years as a singer didn't even begin to show what his talent level was nor what kind of fans that would be waiting for him after the release of the Thriller album.

If you want to make very short sighted arguments, so be it. But I am not foolish enough to be blinded by fanboyism. Android is still in its early teen years. It is going thru large growing pains at presents. Ones that I hope will be solved in the next two years. And it doesn't help that LTE/4G was pushed out the door by VZW without truly being a single chip integrated solution with all of its power issues solved.

Retailers cutting the price on a flagship product this fast is troubling. Is it be caused by over production and low demands? Is bad press or some other factor given retailers a bad feeling and they want to dump their inventory before it becomes worthless?

Another line of thought has also occurred to me. Is VZW unwilling to budge on their price point so Motorola has asked online retailers to run sales to mitigate other market issues like a White iPhone or another Android based phone? That line of thought would be very interesting to follow.

 

[Skull One]

WOW no editing here. Replace Motorola with HTC. I think of Motorola first due to my A855.

 

[techarlj]

I know, Skull, you have paid your dues. But realize you are part of the sliver of iPhone users that even know what jailbreaking is or the potential if it.
The reason android phones drop in price is competition. Apple monopolizes iPhone sales and don't have to compete with anyone.
Possibly the ThunderBolt dropped in price because of this. If I have a hundred phones on my shelf that I'm selling fit the same price Verizon is, people will go to their service provider for the same product and price because I can walk into a Verizon store, I've never seen an Amazon retail location. So if I can drop the price and make something, folk gotta do what you can to dive prices.

 

[Chizzele]

I think they are trying to sell as many as possible before 4g lte prices go up.

 

[Skull One]

I think they are trying to sell as many as possible before 4g lte prices go up.

Now that is a interesting angle to play with. Get a million Thunderbolt users up and running so you get the best sampling for a tiered data pricing structure. The question still is why is VZW not following the online retailers to at least the $175 price point? But your theory has implications.

 

[sb1831]

Well at least it makes the extended battery cost less of a factor when buying now... Thats a plus.

 

[MrLethalWeapon]

I got concerned about the possibility of the data plan price going up so I bought it, though my price ended up being $174.99.

Hopefully I'll find someone to sell it to later when the dual core phones come out.

 

[crabbybahstid]

I just double checked on this. Only for NEW customers

trying to use my upgrade it puts the price @ $199

That's what I discovered yesterday. If you consider that they've cut my NE2 discount from $50 to $30, and done away with it completely in the future, VZW ain't givin' me no warm fuzzies.

 

[funwheeldrive]

If I was to buy a thunderbolt out of contract, would I be able to go to verizon and change my plan to a 4g plan even though I didnt use my upgrade?

 

[patmw123]

Wirefly has the thunderbolt at 174.99....or atleast it did earlier today

 

[dannar]

It's easy to jump on Skullone due to the fact that he's an iPhone user in the midst of android users. It would be like being a republican at the democratic national convention. Right or wrong, he'd never get a word in.

I feel I'm too ignorant of the sales process to properly speculate. What doesn't make sense to me is going through a 3rd party that leads you to sign a two year contract with a service provider. How does it work? Does VZ get the subscription while the retailer gets the money for the phone?

What about those of us on contract already, who are nearing their contracts end or merely have an upgrade available to them? Would we ever be able to go through a cheaper 3rd party like this?

 

[Skull One]

It's easy to jump on Skullone due to the fact that he's an iPhone user in the midst of android users. It would be like being a republican at the democratic national convention. Right or wrong, he'd never get a word in.

I feel I'm too ignorant of the sales process to properly speculate. What doesn't make sense to me is going through a 3rd party that leads you to sign a two year contract with a service provider. How does it work? Does VZ get the subscription while the retailer gets the money for the phone?

What about those of us on contract already, who are nearing their contracts end or merely have an upgrade available to them? Would we ever be able to go through a cheaper 3rd party like this?

The good news for me is, I am a very educated Android user and programmer


Amazon collects two spiffs. One from the cell phone maker and one from the cellular provider. The terms are pre-negotiated before each phone gets released to the public. At present I don't believe anyone has ever leaked the terms of the spiffs. Which is a shame, because I believe it would be rather interesting information to have.

 

[crabbybahstid]

If I knew that my service contract wouldn't get muddied up, I wouldn't mind buying from Amazon to save the $$$, but the online reviews I've read about Wirefly make me pretty uncomfortable.